A metabonomic study of cardioprotection of ginsenosides, schizandrin, and ophiopogonin D against acute myocardial infarction in rats

BACKGROUND: Metabonomics is a useful tool for studying mechanisms of drug treatment using systematic metabolite profiles. Ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1, ophiopogonin D, and schizandrin are the main bioactive components of a traditional Chinese formula (Sheng-Mai San) widely used for the treatment of coronary heart disease. It remains unknown the effect of individual bioactive component and how the multi-components in combination affect the treating acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS: Rats were divided into 7 groups and dosed consecutively for 7 days with mono and combined-therapy administrations. Serum samples were analyzed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) spectroscopy. Partial least squares discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) was employed to distinguish the metabolic profile of rats in different groups and identify potential biomarkers. RESULTS: Score plots of PLS-DA exhibited that combined-therapy groups were significantly different from AMI group, whereas no differences were observed for mono-therapy groups. We found that AMI caused comprehensive metabolic changes involving stimulation of glycolysis, suppression of fatty acid oxidation, together with disturbed metabolism of arachidonic acid, linoleate, leukotriene, glycerophospholipid, phosphatidylinositol phosphate, and some amino acids. β-hydroxybutyrate, cholines and glucose were regulated by mono-therapy of schizandrin and ginsenosides respectively. Besides these metabolites, combined-therapy ameliorated more of the AMI-induced metabolic changes including glycerol, and O-acetyl glycoprotein. A remarkable reduction of lactate suggested the therapeutic effect of combined-therapy through improving myocardial energy metabolism. CONCLUSIONS: This study provided novel metabonomic insights on the mechanism of synergistic cardioprotection of combined-therapy with ginsenosides, schizandrin, and ophiopogonin D, and demonstrated the potential of discovering new drugs by combining bioactive components from traditional Chinese formula. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1472-6882-14-350) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.